In bottle-treatment machines, which are constructed with revolving supports, bottles are supplied to the bottle-treatment machine by a supply conveyor, generally a plate conveyor belt.
The bottles are then pushed laterally from the plate conveyor belt by means of so called star wheels and supplied by way of a sliding table to the rotary bottle support or turret of the bottle-treatment machine.
This bottle support is equipped with the bottle plates, each of which receive one bottle to be treated. Each bottle is centered on the individual bottle plate by a centering head and clamped so as to render it, as much as possible, incapable of rotating relative to the bottle plate.
This clamping is necessary in order to ensure the subsequent methodical treatment of the bottle. The bottle plates on the bottle supports are, however, mounted to rotate and are provided with a controlled drive. The rotary movement of these bottle plates is intended to be transmitted with as little slip as possible to the bottle standing upon and clamped to the bottle plate.
Normally the plate conveyor belts are lubricated with a lubricant in order to facilitate lateral displacement of the bottles from these belts. Since the lubricant sticks to the annular bases of the bottles as they are conveyed on the plate conveyor belt and is also transferred to the bottle plates, it is practically a certainty that the lubricant will interfere with the desired non-slip transmission of the controlled rotary movement of the bottle plates to the bottles.
German utility model-Gebrauchsmuster DE-GM No. 83 19 977 attempts to reduce the slip between the bottle plate and bottle caused by the aforementioned lubricant for the plate conveyor belts.
In this system the bottle plate comprises a metal plate with a flexible covering. The covering has recesses uniformly distributed over the surface.
The top surfaces of the active surface parts of the covering are preferably constructed as truncated cones or truncated pyramids with mini points. The intent of this bottle plate is to increase the surface pressure between the bottom of the bottle and the bottle plate over the reduced active area so that the top surfaces with the mini points in the form of cones and pyramids may penetrate the film of lubricant and to push it aside as pressure is increased.
A bottle plate constructed in this way does not always satisfy the requirements of the greatest possible freedom from slipping between the bottle plate and bottle. Sometimes residue of lubricant still remains between the top surfaces of the flexible covering and the bottle bottoms and the flexible covering, preferably of rubber, particularly in the presence of lubricants, frequently has inadequate frictional contact with the glass of the bottle.